Determinants of Oral Hygiene Among Students of Lumala Day and Boarding Secondary School in Lumala Mwanza, Tanzania.

Abstract

Introduction: The research determined the students’ knowledge and perception, practices and socio economic factors of oral hygiene among students of Lumala Day and Boarding Secondary School in Mwanza. This research was to find out the determinants of oral hygiene among students since they greatly affect the lifestyles and the well being of students. This was as a result that oral hygiene is increasing on the disease burden in Tanzania because it’s not taken in consideration like other diseases namely malaria and TB. In addition to that practices to prevent poor oral hygiene are also ignored. General Objective: The general objective was to identify the determinants of oral hygiene among students of Lamula Day and Boarding Secondary school in Lumala Mwanza Tanzania in July, 2015. Methodology: A cross-sectional study design was carried out and data collected in September 2015 with an administered questionnaire from 254 students picked by systematic random sampling. The analysis of data was done using Univariate, Binary and descriptive methods and showed in figures, tables, pie charts and histograms. Results The research recognized that majority of students 118(46.5) were able to identify more than four options about knowledge on oral hygiene and almost all respondents had positive perception on oral hygiene and 50.8% (129) agreed that tooth decay was the most prevailing factor. Objective two confirmed that nearly all students 241(95.3%) brushed their teeth once in a day, 189 (74.4%) don’t brush before going to sleep, 99.2% (252) use fluoridated tooth paste to brush, most of them eat sweet foods more the twice and ticked 138 ( 54.3) take oral hygiene practices as preference. Conclusion: The research proved that the determinants of oral hygiene among students of Lumala Day and Boarding Secondary School Lumala Mwanza were not adequate. The bad practices among students led to the increase of tooth decays in students thus increased burden of disease. Recommendations Health promotion in schools and entire community in order to encourage the students to improve on their kind of lifestyle by putting the knowledge they have into practice hence good preventive practices. Also by implementing the policies and adequate allocation of funds to communities in need and this will help during health promotion and fluoridating water services. In addition to keep motivating the village health teams (VHTs) with services in order for them to improve on their work at the community level.